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I am new, and just have a question. I purchased my house almost 3 years ago and it had 5 magnificent raised garden beds. My wife and I did not have time to maintain the garden so the next summer we removed 4 of them. The 5th is in the narrow area along side my house and has Strawberries and Raspberries planted in it. We let them grow and harvested what we could off of them, but last year due to time constraints we let them go. Grass begin to grow up in the bed and became very long. This year I want to clean that up and make them produce again. The Strawberries did not produce much last year or get nearly as big as they did in previous summers. I think the grass had a lot to do with that. I have been pulling the grass out, but how do I keep it from coming back? Also, I don't really know how to nurture the fruit plants, can anyone tell me what I need to do?
Do just like you would with a regular garden if you will. (just in the ground)
You can't till it, however I would cut/pull up as much grass as possible. Then just turn the dirt as much as possible with a shovel, dig some out, add new on top. Problem with that is you will need to start over.
The other option is to put down cardboard or hay. Something along those lines. This will cover and kill the grass without hurting your plants.
The only problem with this is gaps, and getting close around your plants.
I am having the same problem with two of my raised beds. I put some landscaping fabric down in one yesterday after pulling up the grass on one half of it. I will start on the 2nd one tomorrow and do the same thing to kill the grass. After the grass starts to die I will dig and pull it up, add more organic matter, turn the soil and plant. Good luck with yours.
What about a sheet mulch of newspapers. Usually newspaper thick enough can smother grass and will "settle down" and hug the ground unlike cardboard. It will also break down fast enough that the berries can root daughter plants through it.
The problem with most species of grass (long term) is that they are usually spread by rhizomes and need to be pulled out and rooted out back to where they originally started from!
Pulling is just the end result, so one has to become a pro in preventing them from entering the gardens!
I use plastic edging that is 20ft long x 4-5"s high to prevent grass from encrouching into the gardens! It is an easy solution and not very expensive!
The only species that will send stolons lower then the edging is quake grass!!!!
dang thing!
If the bed is JUST strawberries, you can remove the berry plants to pots temporarily. Then till up the entire bed and rake thru it to remove all the grass. Then re-plant the strawberries. You will still have to weed out grass later since the grass may have made seeds last year that you can't see til they come up.
The bed is half strawberries that struggle to grow, and half raspberries that I have no idea on how to care for. I like the Idea of newspaper though. its about all ours local paper is good for! I think the problem started last spring when I laid some extra sod in the area between the bed and the house. It still hasnt completely rooted so I think I will pull it out and relocate it to some bare patches and spread some rubber mulch in the open area as I need more cover since 2 of my sprinkler lines are there and were buried less than an inch from the surface when I bought the house.
Once you get the grass under control mulching works. Newspaper and shaving. Keep the mulch deep. 5-6 inches and keep putting mulch as the old decomposes. Keep the strawberries thinned each year. Cut off some of the runners to keep your patch under control.
You must pull the grass by hand. But what I find is the best for preventing grass from creeping back in , is to keep a bare area of about 6" all the way around the bed. Take a shovel and cut the grass out of the strip around the garden. Then in about 2 week , use table salt as a preventative for growth. I usually put a pretty good trail covering the width of the bare area. Salt is organic and inexpensive. Mind you NOTHING will grow in that area until you stop salting it. I salt about once every 3-4 months depending on what I am fighting. It will stop the grass from climbing back in the bed. Anything that pops up in the bed will need to be pulled by hand Eventually it will stop coming up in the bed.
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Eventually it will stop coming up in the bed.